What volleys of questions have to be asked and answered! What volumes of news to get and to give! What hurrying here and there and up and down to admire the new horses and mules, the new waggons and caravan—to admire everything! while the half-frightened looks those sturdy, sun-browned, bearded men cast at auntie and Aileen were positively comical to witness!
Then, when the first wave of joyous excitement had partially expended itself—
'Stand back, boys!' shouted Moncrieff's partner, a bold-faced little Welshman, with hair and beard just on the turn; 'stand back, my lads, and give them one more little cheer.'
But was it a little cheer? Nay, but a mighty rattling cheer—a cheer that could have issued only from brave British throats; a cheer that I almost expected to hear re-echoed back from the distant mountains. 144
Ah! but it was echoed back. Echoed by us, the new-comers, and with interest too, our faithful Gauchos swelling the chorus with their shrill but not unmusical voices.
But look! more people are coming down the road. The welcome home is not half over yet. Yonder are the lads and lasses, English, Irish, Castilian and Scotch, who have no horses to ride. Foremost among them is a Highlander in tartan trews and bagpipes. And if the welcome these give us is not altogether so boisterous it is none the less sincere.
In another hour we are all safe at home. All and everything appears to us very strange at first, but we soon settle down, and if we marvelled at the outside of Moncrieff's mansion, the interior of it excites our wonder to even a greater degree. Who could have credited the brawny Scot with so much refinement of taste? The rooms were large, the windows were bowers, and bowers of beauty too, around which climbed and trailed—winter though it was—flowers of such strange shapes and lovely colours that the best of our floral favourites in this country would look tame beside them. None of the walls were papered, but all were painted, and many had pictures in light, airy and elegant frames. The furniture too was all light and elegant, and quite Oriental in appearance. Oriental did I say? Nay, but even better; it was Occidental. One room in particular took my aunt's fancy. This was to be the boudoir, and everything in it was the work of Indian hands. It opened on to a charming trellised verandah, and thence was a beautiful garden which to-night was lit up with coloured lanterns, and on the whole looked like a scene in some Eastern fairy tale.
'And would you believe it, Aileen,' said Moncrieff, when he was done showing us round the rooms; 'would you believe it, auntie, when I came here first my good partner and I had no place to live in for years but a reed shanty, a butt and a ben, mither mine, with never a stick of furniture 145 in it, and neither a chair nor stool nor table worth the name?'
'That is so, Miss M'Crimman,' said the partner, Mr. Jones. 'And I think my dear friend Moncrieff will let the ladies see the sort of place we lived in.'
'This way, then, ladies,' said the big Scot. He seized a huge naphtha lamp as he spoke, and strode before them through the garden. Arrived at the end of it they came to a strange little hut built apparently of mud and straw.